Friday, February 27, 2009

Philately Fridays: France, 1982


Gotta love the pre-computer graphic representations of broad themes like "technology," "communication," and "industrialization."

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

CLIPSE


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I saw this super fresh Tony DiSpigna-designed zipper alphabet on graphic artist Raza Uno's blog yesterday and it reminded me of this other great typeface called Paper Clip. So simple and so perfectly done.


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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Keiichi Tanaami

I first discovered Japanese graphic artist Keiichi Tanaami when I stumbled upon his book BLOW-UP: Poster and Graphic Works, 1963-1974 in an Osaka bookstore a couple of years ago. Ever since then I've been obsessed with his off-the-cuff psychedelic artwork. Here are a few posters from that book. Expect to see more from Tanaami over the next couple of weeks. Can't wait? Pick up any of his books at YouWorkForThem.







Monday, February 23, 2009

River Raid

I grew up fully fascinated with Atari. Not just the games, but the promotional graphics as well - the instruction manuals, the t-shirts and patches, and of course the boxes. Real heads know that Activision had the best box designs out there. Clean vector graphics, funny style illustrations, and the ever-present rainbow trailer - these visuals appeared on all of their box designs, giving them a consistently strong sense of identity. Their boxes are identifiable from a mile away. Here's one of my favorites - River Raid.




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Bonus beats:

Friday, February 20, 2009

Philately Fridays: USA, 1984



Sorry for the major lack of content this past few days. I'll be back in full effect next week! Here's a really nice graphic representation of reflections on the water, designed with a clean and simple grid system and printed with silver ink. Love it.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Philately Fridays: USA, 1974



Super groovy ZIP code promotional stamp. Love the bubbly illustration that just isn't pulled off anymore these days.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Paul Rand interview

Our office got hit with some minor flooding, so while I work on cleaning and sorting things out, enjoy this 3-part interview with legendary graphic designer Paul Rand.





Friday, February 6, 2009

Philately Fridays: China, 1983



1983 was declared to be World Communications Year. For computer nerds, this probably meant all sorts of exciting stuff. For graphic design nerds, this meant all sorts of very nicely-designed commemorative postage stamps to collect. Here's one from China with a great geometric heart pattern.



Related: Austrian World Communications Year stamp from 1983

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Lance Wyman at the zoo

Fantastic animal icons designed by the great Lance Wyman for the National Zoo in Washington D.C.


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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Dan Reisinger

Here's a whole bunch of design work from Yugoslavian-born and Israel-bred graphic artist Dan Reisinger. His ability to stylishly combine simple shapes and bright colors into wild geometric patterns with a seamless mix of Hebrew and English type makes him one of my favorite designers.


Logo for El Al Airlines, 1971.


Logo for the 14th Maccabiah Games, 1993.

Various posters from the late '60s through early '80s:















Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Flic Story

Cool illustrated book jacket for a 1977 Spanish edition of the French detective book Flic Story. Designed by Javier Noguera. I'd love to see a full color version if anyone out there has an image of it.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Seattle. You're Going to Like it a Lot.

Here are the highlights from a cool Flickr set of Seattle's "Cabinet of Curiosities." Thanks to Pileup reader Oscar Bartos for passing the link along!









Related: Emerald City, September 3 2008.